Patrick
White's father, Victor Martindale or Dick, 'was seven when his father
died. His mother Mary Cobb raised him as her spoilt youngest son,
the favourite of her seven children[...]
Mary was a tiny woman with a little humpback. Nothing was said
about the hump or the scandal of her brother caught servicing young
men in a lavatory in a country town. The certain genetic contribution
of the family to this story is the milky-blue stare they gave to
all the generation of Whites since then and, through them, to a
more scattered and elusive family of Patrick White's imagination.'
[Marr 20]

Dick's
role in the rise of the [family estate] is rather vague. In accounts
of those early years, Dick's name is not bracketed with hard work.
He was a bit of a dandy, a daredevil, at times a buffoon. The brothers
called him the playboy of the team. Scraps of stories survive: how
Dick put an unbroken mare into harness and smashed a buckboard to
pieces in front of the house, and how he took the men down to the
river to eat watermelons. His brothers disapproved of such familiar
behaviour and they wore him down. Dick became their amiable, shy
companion, a sweet man and quite without side. He was a hay-fever
sufferer and spoke with a high nasal drawl. After a while his sprinter's
body thickened, but he kept a boy's face and those astonishing blue
eyes. Horses were his passion.' [Marr
21]

Dick's
older brother Henry, known as H.L., took charge of the huge Belltrees
property. He was 'a small, reclusive and forthright man, with a
strong and original intelligence'. [Marr
22]

'As
I remember him my Uncle Henry was a short man of fiery complexion,
his eyes as cold as blue glass until they blazed with enthusiasm
or anger. In spite of my mother's dislike for him, he was
the only White uncle I liked, and he seemed to reciprocate,
perhaps sensing a fellow eccentric.' [Flaws
44]

'The
siblings might have seen him as freakish if they had dared.'
[Flaws
43]

'He dealt
with the world by correspondence[...] His letters to his family
and politicians[...] and bird collectors filled over fifty volumes
in his library.' [Marr
22]

'Only
horses and racing seemed to engage [Dick's] interests' and he 'spoke
of getting out of the partnership from which he was drawing huge
dividends'. [Marr
24] Then at forty-two he met Ruth Withycombe and married
her a year later.

Ruth 'was
twenty-four when her mother died and for the next eight years lived
in a household of orphans and spinsters. She made her own clothes
and helped[...] about the house.' [Marr
9] Her Withycombe blood[...] helped make her determined
to rise above her circumstances.

'Ruth loved
the theatre, was musical - she crossed her hands most elegantly
at the piano - and kept in touch with [the English relations[...]
[Her brother] Clem's sardonic joke was that she spent those years
walking down the road to Edinglassie [a White house close by her
family's Piercefield] "hoping to catch a White".' [Marr
9]a5a

In 1910,
Dick 'stood half a head shorter than his bride[...] He was a cheerful
little figure, chubby, vague and ten years older than Ruth'. [Marr 4]

'As
Mrs Victor White, Ruth would lead a life she had so far only observed
from its edge. To the rich existence that lay before her she would
bring ambition, energy, imagination and a trace of Withycombe wariness.
Above all, Ruth was determined never to be bored.' [Marr
4]

'Dick[...] was a plain good unimaginative Australian male, the
kind that panders to pretentious wives. Ruth was vain, but
her vanity was easily deflated[...] Though she despised the
Whites for being rich, she enjoyed the advantages money brought.'
[Flaws
41]

'After
the wedding they spent the best part of two years traveling
in Europe and the Middle East...

a3
'If Dick had been around the world before without any of it
rubbing off on him, Ruth was determined on worldliness. Without
losing her native innocence, she did acquire quite a lot[...]
something of this determination must have transferred itself
to the embryo in her restless womb.' [Flaws
9]

'There
is a snapshot of Ruth and Dick posed on the plain of Bisley,
England in 1911. It must have been taken shortly after their
son's conception. Dick is looking quite the masher, in straight-set
boater and bow-tie, the White's blue eyes giving him that
blind look. Ruth is seated on an iron chair, a thoughtful
Edwardian caryatid starting to enjoy womanly fulfilment. (Apt
to look coarse in the early days of her marriage, she told
herself later, "A woman must decide between face and
figure" and she settled for figure.)[...] they were still
spontaneously "Dicky" and "Bird", unconscious,
poor things, of the cuckoo they were about to hatch out.'
[Flaws
9]